Maybe the good side of getting nuked... Looking at the new intros, I know so much more about people here -- especially Mr. Chuck and Papaw.
Me, I like old tools, especially hand tools because they do the job, and let me experience the jobs people have done for centuries. It's almost like shaking hands with those who came before.
I currently work with developmentally disabled adults, something I've done for almost 18 years. Before that, I worked at different woodworking jobs, from theatrical carpentry, which taught me fast, light, and do it quick. I did restoration carpentry, from houses to antiques, which taught me patience and observation, and, as I tore things down and read the tool marks, a lot about old techniques and tricks. I worked with a couple of other fellows I had met in a shop that was filled with line-shaft mega machines -- sash stickers, 30 inch planers that could hog off as much as a half inch a pass, single end tenoners -- the smallest motor we had was 5 horse, and the planers ran on 25 horse behemoths. We built, and occasionally installed, wood sash and doors. Once we duplicated some doors for the oldest standing house in Sacramento. Interesting. Some of the mouldings were done by hand, while others had been run by machines.
I spent a decade working with Indo-Chinese refugees, a year of which was working with Viet-Namese carpenters and shipwrights, who started by building their own tools. They really taught me!
I spent about 17 years as one of the two master carpenters at Sutters Fort State Historic Park. The interpretive period there is 1846, so we honed our research on tools to a fine edge, because anything we used had to have been designed no later than 1845 (had to give it a year to find its way to California.
I have a very few tools from my great-grandfather, a few from my grandfather, and a hoard of tools I've acquired over the years, mostly hand woodwork tools and blacksmith tools, all of which I use.
Since joining Tool Talk, wrenches have started talking to me...
And that's what I do with my degrees in anthropology and English literature.
